Hulu stands out as one of the best streaming platforms out there, with a fantastic library of movies and shows spanning decades and genres.
One of their recent hits was Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, the first of many planned installments in Ryan Murphy‘s American Love Story anthology series.
The nine-episode series focused on the courtship, engagement and marriage of the titular couple, who captured the public’s attention in the ’90s and again in 2026. The series inspired countless debates and even some controversies involving allegedly inaccurate depictions of some real-life people who are still very much alive.
Even after all these months and a changing of a season, I’m still obsessed with it. What is it about Love Story that makes it a show worth binge-watching twice? And what does it say about our era that is still fascinated by the Kennedys – and the seemingly endless tragedies that have plagued them like a curse over the years?
The Series Is Sensitive Yet Still Entertaining
It’s not unfair to say that Ryan Murphy succumbs to sensationalist tendencies in his TV shows (see: Monster: The Ed Gein Story), so fans may have been nervous about how he’d treat a real-life tragedy like the romance between JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. However, fears were readily dispelled in the show that manages to treat their relationship with care while still creating a bingeable series. Love Story intimately chronicles the relationship between the Kennedy son and the fashion publicist, a whirlwind love affair that began in 1996 and ended tragically for both of them, together, with a fated plane crash in 1999.
Ultimately, the show does an excellent job of examining the couple’s romance while exploring their individual inner lives and the suffocating pressures that they felt from being in the spotlight. Opting away from the usual excesses of kitsch and camp that have come to define many Murphy-produced productions, Love Story instead stays steady, grounded, leaning more on nuance instead of maximalism. Everything about the show is crafted with immense care, from the writing and production design to the acting, costuming and even the needle drops. Love Story manages to create an enthralling, episodic story out of a deepening one that has largely been defined by its demise in the public consciousness.
Newcomers Kelly and Pidgeon Are Surprisingly Great
Playing legends of American history may seem like a task that should be left up to the professionals, but Love Story made a great choice in casting relative unknowns. While some audiences may recognize Bessette actress Sarah Pidgeon for her Tony Award-nominated performance in Broadway’s Stereophonic, or her recent appearance in last year’s I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, Kennedy’s Paul Anthony Kelly was plucked largely from obscurity; a former model chosen shortly before filming in part because he had the necessary chest hair. Together, it’s undeniable that both nascent actors are perfectly cast in their roles.
As JFK Jr., Kelly embodies the tormented aristocrat, both sad and sympathetic and also impossibly handsome. Meanwhile, Pidgeon emanates confidence and cool, sucking on cigarettes and oozing effortless charm. Both actors bear a striking physical resemblance to the real people they’re pretending to be, but Pidgeon has an undeniably uncanny likeness to Bessette that is bolstered by Pidgeon’s enigmatic charisma in playing her. Kelly, on the other hand, gives a great performance as Kennedy, yet has a lightly amusing problem of being almost too handsome for the role. Still, when Kelly’s Kennedy walks into a room, you understand instantly why all eyes — like Bessette’s — are drawn to him.
It’s an Interesting Look at ’90s Nostalgia and Celebrity Culture
Even if Love Story rightly pulls back on the gratuitous excesses of other Murphy productions, that doesn’t mean it skimps on immersion. The show takes great pains to locate audiences in the time and place that the show is set in, which is mid-1990s New York City. From the costuming to the gritty Manhattan production design, to the music cues that include Mazzy Star and Jeff Buckley, Love Story is a time capsule straight into the ’90s, and it never feels cheap. But along with the window dressings of the ’90s, so too does Love Story paint a vivid picture of the decade’s celebrity culture.
The spotlight, the paparazzi and the flash of cameras are as much as what Love Story is about as the titular love story. Because Kennedy and Bessette’s relationship was so tied to their fame and their relationship to it, the show explores the dynamic between one’s private and public life. The series begins with a scene in which Bessette gets her nails done, while paparazzi flash their cameras and scream her name outside; Bessette only responds with a weary ambivalence. Like Meghan Markle after her, Bessette’s romantic relationship thrust her into a level of publicity she never fathomed, and Love Story does an excellent job at humanizing a person who was robbed of her personhood through fame.
Stream Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette now on Hulu.
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